KC Music fest was a fitting 40th birthday

King City officially celebrated its 40th birthday on September 16th, featuring a 'Festival of Music.'

Congratulations are in order to the many volunteers who worked for nearly a year to produce a free day of musical entertainment, food, crafts, beverages and capped off with birthday cake, to commemorate the community milestone.

The festival was the brainchild of City Manager Jane Turner, who hopes that this will be the first of many musical events, to be held each fall in King City.

Crowd favorites were the Swingtones, which kicked off the festival, and Bobby Torres who performed the finale. They proved you don't need to head downtown Portland to enjoy top-notch entertainment.

Organizers were openly disappointed that the well-published event was not better attended. It was hard to get a true head count because the venue was free and people seemed to come, leave, and return later in the day, rather than attending all the festivities.

From our perspective, organizers did a lot of things right and with some small tweaking; the event could easily evolve into King City's signature event for years to come.

Of course that brings up the issue of money and how to pay the festival's expenses without charging admission in the future, if sponsors don't come up with the same commitments as this year. The festival also did not have a paid director, which is virtually unheard of.

The King City Music Festival was the only totally free to the public event in the metro area, and perhaps all of Oregon this year. And with that comes bragging rights.

The blue ribbon committee, all community leaders and volunteers, worked hard to seek business sponsors who either donated money or gave in kind services to pay the expenses and end with the festival in the black-to the envy of the many big and small festivals that are left shaking their heads at King City's success.

When the steering committee sits down to evaluate what went right and what needs to be changed, one of the first questions the committee much ask itself; are there enough committed volunteers who will work as hard as they did this year?